Charpie's Travels

Once upon a time, my parents came to Korea and we visited Jeju. Now that three months have passed, I thought I'd post some photos.  Jeju Falls

"Teacher, I have a queez!" Peter announced. " You have a quiz or a question?" I asked. " A queeez. What is one plus one plus one...hundred plus two hundred plus three hundred. Plus fifty-four." So I wrote it all out on the board. It looked more impressive and masked the fact that my brain couldn't handle it otherwise. I wrote the answer, and my kids oohed and aahed.  "Everyone clap!" Peter directed between giggles. The class erupted in applause, and I bowed. Then, Peter "remembered" something. "Oh... where is the rose?" "Or where is a tomato?" one of my loving students suggested. "You need a ring, Peter!" I think this brilliant idea came from Ann. She loves that Peter likes me. Those two spent too much time during the remainder of the day discussing how they'd get a ring for Peter to give me tomorrow.

"Teacher, you wanna hear a news?" Justin asks. "What's your news?" I reply. He doesn't say another word, though. Instead, he springs from his chair, stands straight and stiff, and holds his pencil sideways in front of his chest. Then, he remains motionless except to move the hand that holds the pencil. It slowly "ticks" backward from 3:00 to 12:00.  "BZZZZ!!!"  Justin makes an impressively annoying alarm sound. Peter leaps from his chair and bops Justin on the head. The the noise stops, and Peter sits back down. Justin stands statue-like and pleased, waiting for me to react or tell him to sit down. 

Peter brought a wooden bead bracelet today. Sometimes he wore it on his wrist, sometimes he wore it like an anklet. It even briefly hung over his entire ear. But most often, he just played with it.  At some point when he should have been in his chair, Peter appeared in front of my face. "Teacher, go like this," he instructed and held out his index finger. I hesitated and then complied. When I did, he slipped his bracelet onto my finger. "Dum dum duh-dum..."  After singing the beginning of The Wedding March, he announced to the class, "Teacher is my bride!"

I woke up to the sound of a street vendor broadcasting his sales over a loudspeaker. I've heard many a foreigner discuss this sort of wakeup call, but it was a new experience for me.  A couple hours after the wakeup call, someone outside was blaring Pomp and Circumstance. That's not a September song.  The trees between my home and the subway station are tall and skinny. You wouldn't guess they could hold much more than the leaves attached to their branches. Perhaps that explains the baby birds that dropped to the road a couple feet in front of me. They were bright green and beautiful. I'll spare you the details of their demise.  The man working at the SK store wore a shirt with a picture of a hot dog and the words "Spicy Dairy Queen." I love clouds more than I love coffee. I've been in Korea nearly ten months, and the sky's been gray and characterless the majority of those days. Ever since the Chuseok flooding , however, it's been stell...

Chuseok Flood

On my way from the subway station to my apartment, I picked up a cookies 'n cream ice cream bar. I'd never done that before. Now that I know they cost 500 ₩  ($0.43 USD), it won't be so easy to bypass them.  I was greeted by an elderly stranger when I exited the convenience store.  "Oh good! Hi!" he waved. "Hello," I smiled and waved back. And then he turned an addressed the preschool-aged boy beside him. "악수. 악수!" he instructed, pushing him toward me. The little boy looked up at me, jaw open, and stuck out his hand for me to shake. I don't imagine he was overly impressed with me, but  his grandfather was pretty proud of him, and  I walked home with a big, cheesy grin. Also, the cookies 'n cream bar was pretty fabulous.